I Fought Kal'tsit? Seriously? Chapter 8

Even during routine sparring, her fists were always burdened by worries and thoughts.

Even if her mind was utterly free of distractions the instant she threw a punch, unwavering from beginning to end, that was only because those burdens and responsibilities had become part of her fists—if someone had swung her fists in shackles from the very start, then that was all the world would ever see.

And so, some people took it for granted, clinging to her without restraint and sucking her dry, questioning why she couldn't do better.

Just as he had once said.

Some called that a guardian. He called it the craziest of all madmen.

He couldn't stand watching anymore... The more he watched, the more irritated he became.

The fifteenth day of the crash course.

It seemed Saria's investigation in District C hadn't been going smoothly. Whenever he saw her these past few days, her brows had been tightly furrowed.

But she clearly understood the boundary between work and private matters—even giving him a day off specifically.

On that long-awaited rest day, he spent quite a while chatting with Anthony and Duma in the infirmary.

They talked about the sky, the earth, and everything in between.

Anthony merely plucked memories at will, his words weaving into the melody of stories.

They talked from Leithanien music to Sargon's yellow sands. As the former young master of a wealthy family, Anthony had seen Leithanien's opera houses, radiant as pearls, gazed upon the towers symbolizing the Twin Empresses from afar, and endured scorching heat and sandstorms to venture deep into Sargon's cities, where he had examined golden statues and artifacts in museums up close.

He had never seen those magnificent sights, but he could still share a few amusing stories from the road after leaving Kazimierz.

They spoke of how, when the last trace of light fell over the Ursus wilderness, blades extending from the darkness had crossed the perimeter they thought reliable and crept to their side; of what the wilderness most people avoided discussing, and would never see in their lives, truly looked like; of how to get along with Sarkaz mercenaries—drinking, throwing dice, and cramming several people into one room to snore until dawn.

Duma listened silently, tiny stars of anticipation shining in her eyes as she spoke of her hopes for the future.

Originium Arts meant to soothe one's emotions couldn't have been better paired with a vast recuperation garden. She would plant flowers around its edges and water lilies in its center. When they bloomed, she would invite all her friends to admire them together.

It seemed no different from before... but this time, there were new things, and hopes for the future.

He was very satisfied.

The thirtieth day of the crash course.

The studying continued.

But in the world of his dreams, the situation suddenly changed.

In his original plan, he had intended to use finesse to dismantle his opponent's swordsmanship. Repeated exchanges would always let him find a way to receive every technique she used, even though the gap in their physical abilities remained as vast as a chasm.

The problem now was—

It seemed he could gradually keep up with this Feline general's sword.

A Journey from the Past

"Keep up" wasn't quite the right phrase.

More precisely, his strength, speed, and reflexes seemed to have undergone subtle changes within the dream.

At first, he could only judge the direction of an incoming blade by listening to the wind. Now, he could use his eyes to track the Feline general's swordplay while also watching for the monster attacking from behind.

The sixty-eighth dream training session ended with his body being pierced by that monster, and him bleeding to death.

As for why it was the sixty-eighth time... that probably came down to the dream's mechanics.

After proposing his theory to the Feline general last time—that perhaps a nap could also bring him into the dream—he deliberately used his lunch break to test it. As it turned out, he had guessed right.

Not only could he enter this dream every time he fell asleep, but the length of his sleep seemed directly proportional to how long he could last in battle.

When he first blew himself up, he had woken at midnight after sleeping only two or three hours. As his ability to parry improved, he had recently been able to hold on for roughly six or seven hours.

To balance study time and fighting time, while also sparing the prison guards some face, he reluctantly squeezed out two hours to deal with the prison's messy rules, two to three hours for chatting, twelve hours for fighting, and spent everything else studying.

The eighty-seventh dream training session.

He could already receive the Feline general's sword. The physical gap that had once seemed like an impassable chasm no longer appeared to be an insurmountable divide.

No matter how precise one's swordsmanship was, how sharp one's combat instincts, or how refined one's techniques, after constant dismantling and insight, every move would eventually reveal flaws.

If his opponent was a master swordswoman, then after reaching the peak of her art, how many times had she actually used and studied those techniques? How many times had she fought other masters of equal caliber and won?

No matter what that number was, the era always marched forward. Humanity's understanding of technique became an inheritance, leaving its fruits to later generations.

And he had long since inherited it.

The ninety-eighth dream training session.

Of the ninety-eight battles he had fought against this Feline general, the times he had been pierced, beheaded, or torn apart by that monster accounted for nearly more than half.

If he blew it away with wind, it would quickly find its own way back to the ground. If he buried it beneath swirling sand and dirt, the shockwave it unleashed could send even Gerald flying. If he faced it head-on, then he would have to deal with attacks from both sides and would undoubtedly lose within ten moves.

At first, the Feline general would leave the monster watching from the sidelines, confused by his presence. But once she sensed his genuine killing intent and resistance, the monster would swiftly join the battlefield and coordinate with her—once that happened, restarting was the only outcome.

But he had already seen the dawn of victory.

The one hundred and ninth dream training session.

Judging solely by the results, he had improved at a frightening pace.

Both in the dream and in reality.

Facing the hooded Feline general, Gerald no longer felt anything toward the incoming attack.

With a flick of his wrist, his blade swept back in defense, then flashed past Kal'tsit's neck like lightning.

His opponent defended just as calmly as ever. The clash of metal rang without end, sparks flickering in the gaps between them.

In the brief pauses between exchanges, a subtle opening quickly appeared on the Feline general.

So the blade in his hand shifted again. He lightly tapped the sword coming at him from the side, then, beneath Kal'tsit's startled gaze, slashed upward at an almost impossible angle.

The sword edge tore through the air with a sharp whistle, shooting straight for the wrist gripping her weapon.

Her response remained incomparably swift, but this time, her movements could no longer be as effortless as before.

Because all he needed was the simplest motion—use the wind to alter the trajectory of the upward slash, draw it back to his shoulder as he gathered force, lower his center of gravity, pivot his feet, and turn to thrust.

Even this long-lived being, who had witnessed countless things and committed countless killings, would bloom with blood as brilliant as roses.

That mechanical, rigid defense ultimately couldn't stop flexible swordsmanship tempered through countless trials.

Even though most opponents had already died beneath her sword on their first exchange.

"Come on. Let's fight again."

Gerald drew his blade back. A great deal of blood gushed from the wound in Kal'tsit's abdomen. If he had chosen to follow through just now, that strike would have cut away most of her body.

For this single strike, Gerald had used one hundred and nine attempts, forty-six days of death loops, tens of thousands of blade clashes, and the accumulated refinement of twenty-six years.

As it happened, his swordsmanship shared the same origin as hers.

As it happened, that monster was perfectly countered by his Originium Arts.

As it happened, his strength allowed him to match her evenly for the first ten moves.

As it happened, he had the chance to start over again and again.

From the bottom of his heart, even with countless advantages and cheating methods, fighting an opponent forged by nothing but time and experience was still incredibly difficult.

No matter how rigid she was, her technique remained at the pinnacle of the world. Even two or three Inner Guards probably couldn't last an incense stick's worth of time before her.

For a long-lived race, the breadth and length of life were immeasurable. When it came to killing techniques, whether one specialized in a single art or fused together the techniques of countless schools, the final conclusion was always the same: whatever worked was justice.

However, once such specialized techniques were deciphered by someone like him, a player with countless loops under his belt, her reliance on familiar patterns instead became her only fatal weakness.

No matter how one looked at it, he was far inferior to her... except in Originium Arts.

It was something to marvel at.

"Mon2tr."

The monster lunged at Gerald's side once again, but the prepared Gerald simply threw himself straight toward Kal'tsit—

Because the invisible wind had already been waiting there.

There was no point in confronting an existence so far beyond his level of power. No matter how many times he trained, his improvement would never be enough to rival that monster.

Thus, the solution was very simple: he only needed to drive his Originium Arts at full force and buy thirty seconds for the duel between them.

The twisted limbs roared as they charged at Gerald, only to crash into a wall carefully prepared for them—the instant it closed in on Gerald, the surrounding air exploded inward, crushing the monster's limbs from every direction with such force that even the crystals on its surface trembled along with its body.

Gerald knocked aside Kal'tsit's defensive sword stance and wiped away the blood spilling from his mouth from the overload of his Originium Arts as he gasped for breath.

Precise local control was far more difficult than unleashing indiscriminate bombardment on a battlefield, let alone restraining an ultimate war machine like this.

Thirty seconds remained on the countdown.

But Kal'tsit could no longer buy even ten seconds for this battle.

That backhanded thrust had already pierced her spleen. Though it wasn't fatal to her, the resulting sluggishness would only create an irreversible vicious cycle.

Facing her final struggle, Gerald gave a light flick and sent the sword from Kal'tsit's hand flying.

The outcome had been decided.

"—Whew. I finally won a round through cheating."

Gerald silently counted down in his heart.

In fifteen more seconds, that monster would break free of the wind field and tear him into pieces with its claws.

But he simply stood there without moving.

On the other side, a warrior's instincts seemed to urge Kal'tsit to retrieve her knocked-away sword.

Yet, like Gerald, she remained where she was. Her gaze passed over Gerald's shoulder and turned toward the distant city wall.

Gerald followed Kal'tsit's gaze and looked behind him.

On the city wall, which resembled ruins, the first thing he saw was a heavy sword falling from the sky.

A Goliath warrior in massive armor rose above the wall and slowly gripped the heavy sword in his hand. His mountain-like body took only one step forward, yet it felt as if death could be seen shaking loose from him.

A banshee wearing a veil walked gracefully to the Goliath's side. Her crimson gaze pierced through the veil that had listened to countless incantations and settled upon him.

An old man wrapped head to toe in white bandages followed with heavy steps, beside him an aged lich. They carried a touch of disorder about them, clearly having only just barely arrived from another battlefield.

Finally, arriving late amid a thick stench of blood, were Kazdel's mixed-blood royal siblings.

Armor, white dress.

[Sword-bearing Guard] and [Tailor].

Theresis, Theresa.

"How does it feel? Seeing a group of new faces for the first time has to be a little moving, right?"

Gerald's voice sounded beside Kal'tsit's ear, making her cold expression pause slightly.

Yet Kal'tsit seemed to have lost all interest in continuing the battle. Even her monster no longer roared at Gerald. She merely answered him flatly:

"Even if the Sarkaz royal courts have returned from other battlefields—Kazdel has already fallen."

"Elesh is dead. Pegasus from the future, everything you have done is meaningless... But I want to know why."

"The Sarkaz's revenge will leave wounds upon this land that can never heal. Why help Kazdel... What exactly happened in the future?"

Gerald naturally knew the answer to that question.

Before Saria left for Trimounts, he had asked her for two things. One was whether, after getting out, she could help look after Duma and find her work and a place to live in Columbia.

For the other, he had asked whether she could bring him a book about the history of the place called [Kazdel].

And Saria had not disappointed him.

Kazdel was a vague, tiny circle on the map of this land, so indistinct that even city routes couldn't trace its borders clearly. It was the homeland of the Sarkaz, barely stitched together by fragile covenants between the royal courts, forever exposed to Catastrophes and turmoil.

He gazed into the distance, his expression hard as iron.